proa

Given a statute, determine if the text contains an explicit private right of action.

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Source: Neel Guha, Diego Zambrano

License: CC by 4.0

Size (samples): 100

Legal reasoning type: Interpretation

Task type: Binary classification

Task description

A private right of action (PROA) exists when a statute empowers an ordinary individual (i.e., a private person) to legally enforce their rights by bringing an action in court. In short, a PROA creates the ability for an individual to sue someone in order to recover damages or halt some offending conduct. PROAs are ubiquitous in antitrust law (in which individuals harmed by anti-competitive behavior can sue offending firms for compensation) and environmental law (in which individuals can sue entities which release hazardous substances for damages).

Dataset construction

We construct a dataset of PROAs by hand, drawing inspiration from clauses found in different state codes. We construct 50 clauses which do contain a PROA, and 50 clauses which don’t. 5 randomly sampled clauses constitute the training set, and the remaining 95 form the test set.